


Paralyzed

by Adenil



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Coulson screws up, F/M, M/M, Obadiah Stane is an evil man, Tony Stark has unhealthy relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 15:45:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1988592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adenil/pseuds/Adenil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The first time Tony was paralyzed he was seventeen and watching his parents die on live television. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paralyzed

The first time Tony was paralyzed he was seventeen and watching his parents die on live television.

 

He tried to drown out the images with beer, then pot, then harder drugs that left huge blank spaces in his memory. He tried for days, weeks, months. He struggled and vomited and shook and did anything he could to make the images stop. They never left him. They would flash across his mind and leave him stalled, sick, disturbed, frozen in time as he thought _oh god, oh god, they’re dying_.

 

He turned on the television and keyed up archived news, and watched them crash again and again until he was no longer frozen in fear. He was drunk, and there was coke in his blood and hate in his eyes but at least he could move. He was desensitized, because the images were in his mind all the time.

 

Obie came in, then, and his face was sad at the sight of Tony strung out on the couch. He said—oh, what did he say? It was something about family and being there for each other, and how there were other ways to deal with pain.

 

And then he stuck his hand down Tony’s pants, and Tony was frozen for a second time.

 

It became a thing that they did. A thing that Obie did. Where he would whisper that Tony was such a good boy while his hands did unspeakable things. Where he would say that Tony was so smart, so deserving, and then turn him around and cast him out into the waiting arms of hookers and drug dealers before reeling him back in to pluck his latest invention from his fingertips.

 

Tony loved it.

 

He needed it. He wanted that love, that adoration. He wanted the desire in Obie’s eyes when he stripped off his shirt, when he bent himself double for his mentor-leader-friend. He craved it and it gave him life, made him move and shake in the wind. He was no longer paralyzed.

 

Then he was twenty-five and he invented the Sonic Taser.

 

He tested it on himself, deep in the dark of his lab. He froze his body and sat there, struggling, panicking beneath his skin, desperate to escape.

 

But it was only for fifteen minutes. And when it was over, he was free.

 

When he was twenty-five and three days he was paralyzed for the fourth time as Obie came into his lab, glee in his eyes.

 

“We should test this out,” Obie said, and Tony was afraid of him for the first time in his life.

 

He wanted to say that he’d already tested it. He wanted to say that he’d already felt the struggle for motion in his veins, the desperate want to move. He wanted to just say _no_. But he didn’t say that. He just watched as Obie put in the dampening earbuds and pressed the Sonic Taser to Tony’s ear.

 

Tony was paralyzed, frozen, staring blankly ahead as his skin prickled and burned. He could feel Obie’s hands on his head, tilting his head up, running one thumb over his lip.

 

“I think I like you this way,” Obie said. He was smiling. Tony liked when he could make Obie smile. He wanted to say that, but he was frozen. “I like when you can’t talk back.”

 

He pried Tony’s mouth open with his thumb, and Tony could taste tobacco and ink on his fingertips. And Obie whispered _good boy_ and held his mouth open with one hand as he unzipped himself. He was thick and Tony was choking, but he couldn’t do anything, could hardly think as Obie took him more deeply that Tony ever would have allowed. He couldn’t breathe and his sight went hazy until he felt Obie pulling away and turning his face up.

 

And it was okay, because then he felt desired. After all, it only lasted fifteen minutes.

 

The fifth time he was paralyzed he was thirty-six and desperate. There was suddenly Pepper in his life, young and beautiful and able to take his shit and he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to love her. His indecision paralyzed him until Obie wrapped him in his arms and whispered in his ear.

 

“You’re such a good man, Tony. She doesn’t deserve you. You don’t need anyone but me.”

 

And it was _right,_ god dammit. It had to be.

 

He was paralyzed again the day before Afghanistan, when Rhodey was shouting those Good Things in his ear. A fine man. A good man. A good friend. And he felt sick because only Obie could say those things to him. Only Obie could desire him. And he was afraid because if Obie knew, if Obie thought that Tony was straying to another man—

 

_because he couldn’t do that. There could be other women, but never another man, no, there was only Obie_ —

 

then Obie would hate him.

 

He’d been paralyzed, frightened, trying to distract Rhodey but Rhodey was so _close_ and his friend and, and, and…

 

But it had been okay. It had only lasted about fifteen minutes.

 

Then there was Afghanistan, and Tony never stopped being paralyzed for three months.

 

He didn’t know what the count was the next time, when he was paralyzed in the basement of Stark Industries next to the all-powerful arc reactor.

 

He knew that Obie would see it eventually, that little reactor in his chest. The thing like a second heart that kept him alive. But he’d joked, and smiled, and wanted to prove to Obie that he was still the same person as he’d unbuttoned his shirt.

 

Obie couldn’t even look at him. He’d buttoned him right back up while Tony stood there, paralyzed.

 

It made him ill, because he was so wrong. There had to be a reason Obie no longer desired him. It was the scars on his chest, the other scars in his mind. The stench of torture hanging off his skin. He wanted to be desired again. He wanted someone to look at his body and not look away.

 

(Pepper was there. She didn’t look away. Tony almost felt like he could move again.)

 

It was sick, because the next time he heard the whine of the Sonic Taser he’d almost been hopeful. Almost thought he was desired again. But he wasn’t. He was only paralyzed, frozen, held still as Obie ripped his heart out of his chest a second time.

 

He wanted to reach out. He wanted to say _please, Obie, please_ but he was so still. He couldn’t even watch Obie walk away; he could only look up at the ceiling and think _this is how I die_.

 

He didn’t die. And when Obie crashed down in a tangle of metal and flesh and _how ironic, Tony_ , he could almost think about moving again.

 

He was nearly moving, nearly a real person unfrozen, when the paralysis hit him again.

 

It was horrible because he _trusted_ Coulson, but Coulson didn’t even know. He was just an agent with a black jacket and a dry smile. He didn’t know that paralysis was the only thing that Tony feared. He didn’t know that threatening Tony in his living room—the place where Obie…where he had, oh _god_ —he didn’t _know_ , couldn’t know.

 

“If you try to escape, or play any sort of games with me, I will taze you and watch ‘Supernanny’ while you drool into the carpet.”

 

He hadn’t even needed a taser. Tony was already paralyzed.

 

And then there was Manhattan, and Loki, and he fell from the sky perfectly still.

 

Tony needed to move. He’d woken up, but never started moving again. He was still paralyzed, watching a bomb float away, feeling his skin pressing into him. He needed to move, but sometimes he couldn’t. He made machines that could move for him. Metal that could take and twist his body in all different ways, give him the semblance of life again. Dozens of them, each that could move him in a different way.

 

He was paralyzed a lot, then. Metal could move him but he was still frozen.

 

He was paralyzed again when Happy was silent on a hospital bed. Still frozen by the time he met a little boy with a potato gun. Never moving even when he saw Pepper with her skin glowing orange. He was a block of chipped ice, only the shape of Tony Stark, not the essence.

 

He wondered if he’d ever be able to move again, as he held her so close and felt the unnatural heat of her blood, heard the explosions of suits all around him. Pepper was happy. She was laughing. Maybe she would even tell him he was a good boy.   
  
He wasn’t sure he wanted to move.

 

Maybe he just wanted to be desired.


End file.
